Look Out For… Lost Girl by Adam Nevill

“Lost Girl combines the apocalyptic vision of The Road with Nevill’s own brand of bleak terror.”

How far will he go to save his daughter? How far will he go to get revenge?

It’s 2053 and runaway climate change has brought civilization to the brink of collapse. Billions are threatened with starvation and mankind is slowly moving north in a world stricken by war, drought and superstorms – easy prey for the pandemics that sweep across the globe. Easy prey, too, for the violent gangs and people-smugglers who thrive in the crumbling world where ‘King Death’ reigns supreme.

The father’s own world went to hell two years ago. His four-year-old daughter was snatched from his garden when he should have been watching. The moments before her disappearance play in a perpetual loop in his mind, as do nightmarish fantasies of who took her, and why. But the police are preoccupied. Amidst the worst European heatwave on record, a refugee crisis and the coming hurricane season, who cares about one more missing child? Now it’s down to him to find her, even if it means going to the worst places imaginable, to do the unthinkable . . .

Why We’re Excited About This Book: Adam Nevill’s novels have proven to be some of the most disturbing horror works of the last few years. What’s especially impressive is his refusal to stick to a formula, with each book released being different to the last. That’s certainly true with his new novel Lost Girl, which combines the apocalyptic vision of The Road with Nevill’s own brand of bleak terror.

Nevill has said that the book combines two of his own worst fears: that of environmental collapse and that of a child going missing. Set in 2053, the novel combines the planet-wide horror of civilisation slowly collapsing with the personal demons of one unnamed father trying to find his child…

Lost Girl plays on some very primal fears and so it looks like it will continue the trend of Nevill’s books scaring even hard-core horror fans.

Look Out For… Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 2

“The contents are not based on a narrow definition of ‘horror’ but demonstrate how weird fiction spills out beyond any genre definition.”

Acclaimed author Kathe Koja brings her expert eye and editorial sense to the second volume of the Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Contributing authors include Julio Cortazar, Jean Muno, Karen Joy Fowler, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nick Mamatas, Carmen Maria Machado, Nathan Ballingrud, and more. No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outré. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres.

Why We’re Excited About This Book: Year’s Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 1 was one of the most impressive ‘best of’ anthologies released in 2014, with a superb selection of stories chosen by editors Michael Kelly and Laird Barron. This year’s second volume sees the guest editor duties pass to Kathe Koja and the selection of stories looks as good as before.

The contents are not based on a narrow definition of ‘horror’ but demonstrate how weird fiction spills out beyond any genre definition. Authors who’ll be well known to This Is Horror readers such as Nathan Ballingrud and Caitlín R. Kiernan appear alongside names from outside the horror world plus a new translation of a story by the fantastic Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar. And Carmen Maria Machado contributes a tale with one of the best titles ever: ‘Observations About Eggs From the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa’.

With stories already being sought for Volume 3, it looks like Year’s Best Weird Fiction is here to stay.